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Set against deep red curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“Norway's church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to take place after his statement.

This formal apology was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.

Similar to numerous global faiths, the Church of Norway – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the biggest religious group in Norway – for years sidelined LGBTQ+ individuals, preventing them from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church described gay people as “a worldwide social threat”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, ranking as the second globally to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and in 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway commenced the ordination of gay pastors, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.

The apology on Thursday elicited differing opinions. The director of a group for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

According to Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “strong and important” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Internationally, a few churches have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year apologised for its “failures in pastoral support and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but stayed firm in its belief that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a reaffirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in all of your beautiful creation,” Reverend Blair, the general secretary of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We apologize.”